Airways
by Commodore Toad
Summary: "You okay Shelbs?" (drabble, Shelby-centric)


**Disclaimer:** I own nothing.

 **A/N:** I miss this show, so here's a slice of internal Shelby angst with a side of respiratory issues. As an asthmatic individual, I want to make it clear that I am in no way romanticizing asthma or asthma attacks, they're terrible.

* * *

So.

Shelby lives in this totally weird time continuum where she's like, constantly and at all times, realizing the depth of all of these stupid, complicated, gooey, terrible feelings for her best friend that have apparently been living at the bottom of her subconscious circa forever. It happens to her over and over again, right in the middle of dinner or when they're dragging themselves through 'study for finals' slow death or four seconds after Shelby makes the worst/best pun of all time and Cyd wrinkles her nose like she does whenever Shelby bastardizes/improves upon the English language and it's totally normal except for the part where Shelby can't breathe.

Which is kind of inconvenient because in addition to needing it to live, she's kind of good at it. She'd very much like to continue.

Cyd's laughing at her expression which Shelby's pretty sure looks regrettably similar to her "say what?" face but is actually "I've run out of air please help." Cyd keeps laughing and Shelby? Shelby needs to sit down. Preferably in a fetal position with the inhaler she hasn't used since sixth grade.

Oddly, the sixth month period Shelby's asthma symptoms flair up and devastate her world, (no stamina means no flag team means Shelby preemptively blows her entire allowance on five gorgeous flags she's subsequently forced to twirl in the sad stillness of her garage) turns out to be the Time Life collection of Cyd's best gym memories set to a soundtrack of Shelby's steady wheezing.

Mostly because she convinces Coach Collins that she has to skip all gym-related activities just in case Shelby suffers a respitory emergency and is unable to reach her inhaler. There's talk of "wrongful death lawsuits" and plunging West Portland Middle School into decades of shame litigation delivered with the big-eyed sincerity of a grand jury witness gently placing her hand on a Bible. Coach Collins doesn't believe any of it but a Ripley-free class is a gift so they spend the next one hundred and seventy-five days regulated to a blue mat that's layered with more dust than the entire gymnasium.

Rude, demoralizing fifty minute sessions dedicated to the execution of dodge ball survival strategies and the construction of countless silent deals with the universe promising to become better people in exchange for some form of intervention (be it divine, environmental, or The Rob deciding that the Portland public education system has failed to meet his needs and that his only recourse is to pull the fire alarm) magically becomes a symposium on the gentle art of lying on their stomachs, the Zen of headphone-sharing, and the technical aspects of throwing gummy worms at each other, yelling encouraging (Shelby) and discouraging (Cyd) things at their classmates, snapchatting Barry and Naldo, planning their post high school backpacking trip through Tokelau, playing increasingly absurd rounds of Would You Rather?, putting the finishing touches on the 2024 Marcus/Ripley presidential campaign, and in Shelby's case trying really hard not to die.

Eleven-year-old Shelby is successful.

Fifteen-year-old Shelby isn't sure she has the lung capacity to survive this.

"You okay Shelbs?" Cyd asks from across the dinner table or with her face muffled against her European History book, or standing in the kitchen with her hand halfway to Shelby's shoulder.

Her nose is still wrinkling appreciatively from whatever stupid thing Shelby's brain decides it would be a great idea to say and hey look the dim energy-saving light bulbs are making the dark depth of her hair shine like those optical illusions from the seventies Shelby's dad's still obsessed with. Which okay, Shelby's not a monster. Cyd's hair is totally within its legal right to shine. It should feel more than free to get in her eyes and stick up at odd angles and reenact L'Oreal commercials and be used as a mustache and look like the shiniest, softest, most heroic collection of dead skin cells since Joan of Arc. And yeah her cheeks are flushed, shoulders shaking, nose mid-wrinkle but that's only because for Cyd laughter is an event, a phenomenon. Shelby's pretty sure no one enjoys laughter the way Cyd does. No one enjoys _anything_ the way Cyd does.

And god, it's just-

"I'm good, Shelby says, feeling her breath seize up in her lungs, I'm totally cool."

Cyd grins. It's not a big deal or anything, but she's kind of _glowing_.

Shelby can't breathe. 


End file.
